Thursday, December 29, 2011

"USA Sucks!"

Not sure how many of you have been watching, or keeping tabs on, the IIHF World Juniors in Alberta...but the fact that Canadians will cheer for ANY country over America is really pissing me off.

The players say they thrive off of it, but to have everyone in a Canadian jersey erupt with boos and "USA sucks" chants every time an American blade touches the puck (even when Canada isn't even on the ice!) is unbelievable.

And NO ONE is talking about it.

I found this one essay from a few years ago when the same thing was happening in Vancouver and this guy seems to think it' all about politics...

Excerpts from the essay Anti-American Hockey:

"It was near the end of the United States' semi-final game at the World Junior Hockey Championships when a group of foreign relations experts in the stands began chanting: "U.S. Sucks!"

Small detail here: A Canadian team was not on the ice at the time. If one were, that would have gone some way toward explaining the Yankee animus oozing out of the stands: file it under home-ice over-exuberance. It would have been forgivable. Barely.

But the Americans were playing the Russians at the time. And the Canadian crowd wasn't just rooting for the Russians, it was rooting against the Americans. And the chanters weren't so much interested in a hockey game as scoring points against America the country, not the team. (Take away the beer bellies and the baseball caps, and you could have had yourself an anti-World Trade Organization demonstration. When the hockey louts start chanting the same slogans as the local Trotskyist cell, you know you have an ugly trend.)

This wasn't a one-game phenomenon, either.

(And imagine the Canadian reaction if an American hockey crowd had chanted "Canada Sucks!" Imagine the country-wide alarm! Imagine the indignant frothing! Imagine the CBC-televised forum hosted by Peter Mansbridge on the crisis in U.S.-Canada relations, featuring the nationalist ravings of Maude Barlow!)" (SOURCE)

When I was living in England, I did encounter quite a few nasty, anti-American Canadians (who were sure to have a Canadian flag sewn to their backpacks to enure they weren't mistaken for Americans --and this was long before George W. Bush...in fact Clinton had just been elected to his second term)...Yet, anyone I know that has gone to Canada says they are treated wonderfully --even in the Frenchie parts.

I wish this ongoing phenomenon was making the news...it should reach a crescendo on Saturday when The United States verses Canada.